Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri from The Hakims.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all my Muslim brothers and sisters! 🙂

(You can also say “Eid Mubarak” which means “Have a blessed Eid to all of you.”)

This year is the first time I am spending Hari Raya with my husband, so it is kind of a big deal. Ok, not kind of. A really really big deal. Hehe. So this year we decided to go green! Why green? Well there is a story behind this actually.

My sister-in-law bought this lace green fabric for my mother-in-law to wear for our wedding. My MIL then made a mini kurung out of it so she only used half of the fabric and had a balance of 2 metres. So not wanting to waste it, she gave it to me some time before Ramadhan. Since I had not bought any fabric or outfit for Raya, I thought, why not make this part of my outfit and go green this Raya. So I asked my husband and family to also wear green for the first day of Raya, because that’s what I tend to do as the eldest. Be the boss of my family. Haha. Actually there’s another reason why I thought of wearing green, because the last time we wore green together was a long time ago… I mean look at this:

An oldie but a goodie photo of us in 1996, I think. My mum sewed for me and my sister our baju kurung that time. This year, I sewed for them their baju raya. #fullcircle

The last time we wore green was when we still had my father with us, and my sister was still that small! So how long ago was that lah kan. I spent the first half with my husband’s family, my in-laws followed by to my grandma’s house for the second half.

Previously when I was still single ehem ehem, I would go to my grandma’s house with my family somewhere in the afternoon after visiting elders from my mum’s side with my cousins. But of course, there are some changes this year. Because not only do I have my own dad and mum’s side to visit, I also have my husband’s dad and mum’s side to incorporate into the raya visiting schedules. MashaAllah! The challenge is to balance all four sides as fairly as possible.

Colorful view of people walking to the mosque on the morning of 1st Syawal.

The day started with solat hari raya or Eid prayers at the mosque with my husband and my mum. After that, I got ready to siap-siap to go to the first house of the day, my husband’s grandma’s house. Hubby’s brother and my SIL usually spent the first day of Syawal visiting hubby’s grandma and then proceed to SIL’s side, so we decided to tag along before they left for visiting SIL’s side.

Left: Hubby’s grandma, Nenek Nima. Right: My grandma, Nenek Rahmah,

What is raya without visiting our grandparents and elderly family members right? Hubby is left with grandparents from his mum’s side and for me is my dearest one and only grandma from my dad’s side. Let’s treasure our grandparents while we still can… May Allah bless their years with tranquility, mercy and love… InsyaAllah.

Next up were to two houses – my father-in-law’s eldest siblings (hubby’s grandparents from his dad’s side have passed on). And finally, to my grandma’s house in the evening until night time when I finally got to meet up with my grandma, aunties, uncles and cousins.

The night before, the night of 1st Syawal was the first time I did not spend (the first half of) malam raya at my own house. Hubby’s family has a gathering every malam raya for kenduri, takbir together and bermaaf-maafan because his father’s side is large and this was one of the times that they get to meet altogether. So off I go to follow the husband. Luckily for me I had my SIL to tag along with amongst my many new family members hehe Alhamdulillah.

It’s been an interesting experience to go visiting with a husband as compared to being single. The past week of raya roundings have been filled with introductions of the hubby to my relatives, neneks and datuks as they have seen him during the wedding, but not on a close-up level. “Nek/Tok Xxx, ini suami saya…” Hehe paisey dan malu semua tolak tepi lah. Coz you can’t just go into the house and leave your other half to introduce himself/herself to your relative, it’s you who must do the job. And my neneks and toks are the sweetest la MashaAllah. They even gave us presents and special duit raya for pengantin baru! Fuhlaamak, touching beb. Alhamdulillah… 🙂

Speaking of touching moments, I want to record down this moment when one of my closest uncles gave me and my siblings duit raya. We were all like, “dah keje, dah kahwin da etc…” and he said,

“Even if I’m 60 and you’re 40, I will still give you duit raya coz you guys will always be my nieces and nephews…”

*inserts tears rolling down emoticon from whatsapp*

SubhanAllah, may Allah bless my uncle with more rezki InsyaAllah.

So that was my first Syawal experience and as a wife so far. We have 3 more weeks to go, and I’m sure it’s gonna be more interesting and colourful as we go along, InsyaAllah. Have a blessed Eid everyone! 😀

Outfit details: Mini kurung top sewn by me. Skirt is part of another baju kurung I already have which I decided to match with this mini kurung (had no time to make the skirt because I was sewing 3 other outfits for my family and closest friend). Satin pashmina shawl from Ameemoo – totally loving the mint green colour. Shoes from Vincci Malaysia bought a couple of years ago.